MARK SLOTKIN
presents a formidable obstacle in that the ante is not paid if the player does not have a straight or better. I guess there has to be a house edge somewhere!” Heading back to his room after a disappointing
tour, Mark pulled out some cards and chips and set about designing the game he had begun to sketch while playing Bonus Texas Hold’em. “The casinos didn’t like me drawing at their tables; little did they know that they might see the real thing soon enough! The idea of Player vs. Player came to me when I watched each game ending anti-climatically. The reward that comes with a great hand was never realized in any of the table games offered in the casinos, and a bluff was not possible.” Finding himself a sudden and unexpected inventor,
Mark had no rules and no checklist. “The idea of Player vs. Player started out as a Best Hand bet and developed in action after the river because that’s what poker’s all about. To leave it at just the best
The Games L
ike all good games, both Shootout Poker and Lo-Ball Showdown are far easier to simply play than to describe in words…
hand taking the bets from other players without fulfilling the final sporting goal of post river action where betting, raising, and check-raising abounds would be like eating your food without swallowing it.” From these designs Mark created two games, Shootout Poker and Lo-Ball Showdown. At the time Mark didn’t appreciate that he’d come up with a unique idea: “It seemed so logical to me. Subsequently the mathematician who calculated the house edge and all the permutations told me that my concept was simply overlooked. Unbelievable but true! Player action against each other, while concurrently betting against the house, was simply non-existent.” Once happy with his concept, Mark ran the ideas
past three different WPT bracelet holders. All understood the concept immediately. Mark explains: “They liked it, but table games are not in their purview so they passed me along to influential people who work in LV Hotels who we
so I’m not going to try! If you’d like to see the online demonstrations of both games, head to
www.creativecasinogames.us to watch the games in action. Suffice to say that both are very close to the original card games in question (i.e. Texas Hold’em and 7-card lowball) but with the added bonus of playing not only against the house in a table game format, but with added elements of betting that allow players to wager against
each other – adding a new side to table games rarely seen.
APRIL 2012 51
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